John Kampf News Today

Rising out of his chair in the corner of the mat at the Division I sectional wrestling tournament at Austintown-Fitch, Mayfield wrestling coach Dwight Fritz did everything he could to hide the tears his eyes. It wasn’t working. As he watched the hand of his team’s 144-pound entry be raised as a sectional champion, Fritz’s […]

Ryan Looman didn’t know how big his support network really was until he was at the most challenging part of his life. Looman, a resident of Concord Township, was involved in a car crash on Jan. 27 on Route 608 in Hambden Township, a wreck his 9-year-old son Koby did not survive. Since then, the […]

It is now officially go-time. That’s the mindset of Lake Catholic wrestling coach Nate Skonieczny and his team as the Cougars put the finishing touches on a challenging regular season at the Crown Conference tournament on Feb. 17 at Padua. The Cougars went 2-1 at the four-team league tournament, which was wrestled in a dual-match […]

ROOTSTOWN — Perry wrestling coach Dave Rowan didn’t sleep well Friday night. He tossed. He turned. He paced. He went through scenarios that his team might face on Feb. 3 in the Division III regional duals at Rootstown High School. He probably drove his wife nuts. He was worrying. He shouldn’t have. The third-seeded Pirates, […]

The T-shirts teenagers wear can be colorful and comical in wording.

It’s not often that “taking the crowd out of it” comes into play in a dual wrestling tournament. But that was a big key to Chardon’s 39-31 win over Riverside in the fourth annual “Battle in the Barn” dual on Jan. 25 when more than 500 Riverside students crammed into Riverside Fieldhouse for a mid-day […]

Could Dominic Kirks be headed to the Ohio State Buckeyes? That’s certainly on the table as the senior defensive end from Riverside took an official visit to Columbus this weekend and came home with an offer from Coach Ryan Day and his staff. A 6-foot-5, 260-pound All-Ohioan, Kirks announced the offer on his X (formerly […]

Antonio Bottiggi took one look at the preseason wrestling rankings and wrinkled his nose.

Riley Rowan will be turning in his Pirate red for Blue Devil blue. A senior wrestler at Perry, Rowan has committed to Duke University to further both his wrestling and academic careers. Rowan chose Duke over others such as Stanford, Case Western Reserve and Gannon — among others. “I’ve always had that interest in mind […]

Photos from Lake County Touchdown Club banquet, Dec. 10, 2023, by John Kampf.